The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-03-04
THE BARKER FAMILY.
A Pioneer sketch.


river country in Kentucky 20 Indiana. They
made the journey in wagons, and finally halted
On the east bank of the Wabash river, more
than fifty miles above the place where its waters
mingie with those Of the Ohio
A blacksmith and carpenter were Of the
company. A triangular piece of land, formed
by the junction of one of the larger tributaries
Of the Wabash with that river. was selected as
the site of future town, and the blacksmith
built himself a log shop there by way of begin
niEg.
With one exception the heads of families
secured land ane began Immediately to prepare
it for cultivation by cutting down and burning
the immense growth Of timber That exception
was Elisha Barker the carpenter. Ee was an
easy going fellow, not overly fond of work,
and was so sanguine as to the prospects of the
proposed town 'the pint that he was con-
tent to wait until his services were required to
suild stores, churches, mills aud the like
He was long-leeged, long-armed, short
bodied man, with slight droop to his shoulders,
ard the drollest face any mortal ever had
1t is said to be msfortune to one who pre-
rends to be anything else to be reputed wae.
The truth of this saying was well illustrated in
.'Lishe" as he Familiarity called, although
he did not pretend to be anything in particular.
His waggish reputation was a calamity to him.
It mattered not what he did, or how he did it,
,is would be laughed at.
When Munson's little boy died, 1t was the first
death in the neighborhood. Lshe made the
coffin and officiated in neighborly way. When
he came forward to screw down the lid, prepare
tory to proceeding to the grave everyb body in the
room smiled except the mourners 1t is not al
together ImDrObAble that thew would have
smiled if they had seen his movements and the
expression OF his face. He had loved the child
and was deeply grieved and tried to demean
himself with solemnlty BETTING the occasion.
lie was a Virginian by birth. and if he passed
more than dozen words" with you, he would
tell you So adding by way of corollary that he
learned the carpenters trade there: that he
helped build the courthouse at Warrenton and
did the last work on the cupola, and after the
inishing stroke climbed up and stood on one foot
In the forks Of the lightning rod.
The main facts of this daring feat, which
Llshe appeared to consider the greatest of his
life, he never varied in telling, but after he got
mp In 1.-The forks" he let his fertile Imagination
loose. At Que telling he waved his hat; at
other, his hat in one hand and Ratchet in the
other, and soon, extraordinary had been his
flights of fancy in this regard, that Sim Jones,
another neighborhood wag, who was thought to
be jealous of Lishe's superior gifts sareastically
remarked that EFF Lishe Barker tole that cote
house yarn nv his'n many mo- times. he'd hev
whole kit Nv tools, chst an all, mp thar with
aim"
Lishe was capital story teller He could
initiate perfectly the broken English of the
newly arrived from Vienna and Cork, and had
an inexhaustbe supply of German and Irish
stories. He was specially happy in his delinea-
tions of negro character, and would have been
fortune to a modern minstrel troupe.
In addition to the accomplishments already
aamed, Lishe played the fiddle He was one of
shat class known in pioneer parlance as hoe
down fdders. !" The tunes they played and their
manner of playing them known only to
pioneer society. They fiourshed only in the i'm
mediate vicinity of the frontier line Now that
that line has been pushed westward into the
Pacific ocean, they never can exist class
again, until come new continent shall be discov-
cred for another generation of Americans to
conquer.
I, The hoe-down fiddler had no conception of
harmony. but was full to the very ends of his
inpers and toes with melody Many of his
tunes were never written The manuscript of
ais most familiar piece would have been ut
berly unintelgbe to him as the hieroglyphics
of the buried cities Snch tunes as he knew he
learned from hearing some one else play them,
and he played them over and over. month after
month, and year after year. until they became,
rs it We're part of his nature
The names by which he designated his favor
lte pieces were as unique the pieces them
selves. and stamped them as of pioneer origin.
Among them were Gray Eagle" '.Bear-dance, "
Drunken INDIAN" Arkansas Traveller" .'Pos-
sum Trot,n "Natcbez Under the Hill, and lex
cuse me- reader; am writing history Hell Up
the Wabash"
AS class, the hoe down fiddlers no longer ex
let. Individual members of it, aybearded and
venerable, are occasionally met with. In those
portions of the Southern and Western States
where log cabins still built and puncheon
doors laid: where the broad fireplace is still
heaped with cracking logsin winter and adorned
with lockwood blossoms and the branches of the
red bud" in summer in the Egypt of Indiana
and Illinois and the wooded hill country Of Ken
lucky, Missouri and Arkansas, where the shrill
whistle of the locomotive has not yet penetrated
the last of the hoedown fddlers still draws his
"long bow, but to a small and fast diminishing
audience
To Educate him in music would be to make q
creature of him. To teach him the music
Of science aud art and lift his fiddle from his
abdomen to his shoulder would stop forever the
Cow of pioneer melody from its strings. The
TWO classes of music cannot exist in one and the
same person. The hoe-down folders disappear
before culture the Indian and the buffalo
before civilization.
this class at time when IL numerous and
aourisbing. He appeared happier nor
better satisfied with himself and the rest of the
world than when sitting in some chimney corner
IN winter the rude bench in front of the
backsmiths shop in summer with his long RICH
leg thrown over his left, the hand which graspet
tho neck of the fiddle resting on his right knee
the fiddle lying his right thigh and hip ant
MS head turned pretty we'll his lief
shoulder, playing his favorite pieces 10 a com
pany of his neighbors.
Lishe had wife and boy When ne spoke Il
ais wife he called her "Permealy;' when b,
srcke Of her, my woman"
'.Sistor Barker as she was called by tb,
young and old OF the neighborhood. was the head
Of the Barker family. Not in that offensive
sense more forcibly than elegantly expressed b.
the phrase wearing tie breeches.' By III
means She had the industry, energy and thrift
4 81 the family. She was never idle. She wove
spun, sewed. nursed the sick; in short sh
surnea her hand readily and cheerfuy to an,
soonest toll she was capable of enduring. Sh'
was short, fat little woman of forty. will